The Murder Book

Milo said, "Say cheese." Waved. Jammed the Mustang into DRIVE and sped away.

He dropped me back home, and I slept until 5 P.M., woke in time to turn on the news. The Cossack brothers' deaths missed the network affiliate broadcasts but was featured an hour later on a local station's six o'clock spot.

The facts were just as Georgie Nemerov had reported: Single-car accident, probably due to excessive speed. Thirty seconds of bio identified Garvey and Bobo as "wealthy Westside developers" who'd built "some controversial projects." No identifying photos. No suspicion of foul play.

Another death occurred that night, but it never hit the L.A. news because it went down ninety miles north.

Santa Barbara News-Press item, forwarded to me by e-mail, with no accompanying message. The sender: [email protected] /* */ That was a new one.

The facts were straightforward: The body of a sixty-eight-year-old real estate executive named Michael Larner had been found two hours ago, slumped in the front seat of his BMW. The car had been driven into a wooded area just north of the Cabrillo exit off the 101, on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. A recently fired handgun sat in Larner's lap. He'd died of "an apparent single wound to the head, consistent with self-infliction."

Larner had come to Santa Barbara to identify the body of his son, Bradley, forty-two, the recent victim of a heart attack, who'd also- irony of ironies- succumbed in a car. Bradley's vehicle, a Lexus, had been discovered just a few miles away, on a quiet street on the north end of Montecito. The grieving father had left the morgue just after noon, and investigators had come up with no accounting of his whereabouts during the three hours leading up to his suicide.

A homeless man had discovered the body.

"I was going in there to take a nap," reported the vagrant, identified as Langdon Bottinger, fifty-two. "Knew something was wrong right away. Nice car like that, pushed up against a tree. I looked inside and knocked on the windows. But he was dead. I was in Vietnam, I know dead when I see it."

CHAPTER 47

After dropping Alex off, Milo turned on the Mustang's radio and dialed to KLOS. Classic rock. Van Halen doing "Jump."

Kicky little thing, the 'Stang. Something with a little zip.

"Used to be owned by Tom Cruise's gardener," the multipierced girl at the alternative rental yard had told him. Night owl; she worked the midnight-to-eight shift.

"Great," said Milo, pocketing the keys. "Maybe it'll help on auditions."

The girl nodded, knowingly. "You go out for character roles?"

"Nah," said Milo, heading for the car. "Not enough character."

He returned to John G. Broussard's digs on Irving, sat and watched for hours. The chief's wife emerged at 1:03 P.M., escorted to the driveway by a lady cop who held open the driver's door of the white Caddy. Mrs. B. drove toward Wilshire and was gone.

Leaving John G. alone in the house? Milo was fairly certain Broussard wasn't in the office; he'd phoned the chief's headquarters, impersonated a honcho from Walt Obey's office, was told very politely that the chief wouldn't be in today.

No surprise, there. Yet another anti-Broussard piece had run in the morning Times. The Police Protective League griping about poor morale, dumping it all in Broussard's lap. Commentary by some law prof, psychoanalyzing Broussard. The clear implication was that the chief's temperament was a poor fit for modern-day policing. Whatever the hell that meant.

Add all that to the events of last night- and Craig Bosc's report to the chief- and Broussard had to know the walls were closing in.

John G. had always been the most cautious of men. So what was he doing now? Upstairs in his bedroom closet, picking out a cool suit from a rack of dozens? It was almost as if he didn't care.

Maybe he didn't.

Milo kept watching the Tudor digs, stretched his legs, ready for the long haul. But five minutes later a dark green sedan- an unmarked Ford, blackwalls, pure LAPD- backed out of the driveway.

Solitary driver. A tall man, rigid at the wheel. The unmistakable outline of the chief's noble profile.

Broussard turned south, just like his wife had. Stopped at Wilshire and sat there for a long time, with his left-turn signal blinking- what a good example- waited for the traffic to thin before swinging smoothly onto the boulevard.

Heading east. So maybe he was going to work. Toughing it out, show the bastards.

One way to find out.

Broussard stuck precisely to the speed limit, gliding in the center lane, signaling his right turn on Western well within DMV parameters. He drove south, past Washington Boulevard, picked up the 10 East and engineered a textbook entry into the afternoon flow.

Freeway traffic was moderately heavy but steady, perfect tail situation, and Milo had no trouble keeping an eye on the Ford as it passed through the downtown interchange, stayed on the 10, and exited at Soto, in East L.A.

The coroner's office?

And Broussard did drive to the clean, cream morgue building on the west end of the County Hospital complex, but instead of turning in to park among the vans and the cop cars, he kept going, continued for another two miles. Made a perfect stop at a narrow street called San Elias, turned right, and did a 20 mph cruise through a residential neighborhood of tiny bungalows packaged by chain link.

Three blocks up San Elias, then the street dead-ended and the green Ford pulled over.

The terminus was marked by twenty-foot-high iron double gates, rich with flourishes and topped by Gothic arches. Above the peaks, the iron had been bent into lettering. Milo was a block away, couldn't make out what they spelled.

John G. Broussard parked the Ford, got out, locked it, tugged his suit jacket in place.

Not dressed for the office- the chief never showed up at Parker Center out of uniform. Lint-free, all those razor-presses, his chest festooned with ribbons. During ceremonial occasions, he wore his hat.

Thinking he was a fucking general or something, said the scoffers.

Today Broussard wore a navy suit tailored snugly to his trim physique, a TV blue shirt, and a gold tie so bright that it gleamed like jewelry from a block away. Perfect posture accentuated the chief's height as he walked to the big iron gates with a martial stride. As if presiding at some ceremony. Broussard paused, turned a handle, stepped through.

Milo waited five minutes before getting out. Looked over his shoulder several times as he covered the block on foot. Feeling antsy, despite himself. Something about Broussard…

When he was halfway to the gates, he made out the lettering.

Sacred Peace Memorial Park

The cemetery was bisected by a long straight pathway of decomposed granite, pink-beige against a bordering hedge of variegated boxwood. Hollywood junipers formed high green walls on three sides, too bright under a sickly gray sky. No orange trees in sight, but Milo could swear he smelled orange blossoms.

Twenty feet in, he came upon a statue of Jesus, benevolent and smiling, then a small, limestone building marked OFFICE and fringed with beds of multicolored pansies. A wheelbarrow blocked half the path. An old Mexican man in khaki work clothes and a pith helmet stooped in front of the flowers. He turned briefly to look at Milo, touched the brim of the helmet, returned to weeding.

Milo circumvented the wheelbarrow, spotted the first row of gravestones, kept going.

Old-fashioned markers, upright, carved of stone, a few of them tilting, a handful decorated by sprigs of desiccated flowers. Milo's parents had been buried in a very different ambience, huge place, not far from Indianapolis, a suburban city of the dead bordered by industrial parks and shopping malls. Mock-Colonial buildings with all the authenticity of Disneyland, endless rolling green turf fit for a championship golf course. The markers in his parents' cemetery were brass plaques embedded flat in the bluegrass, invisible until you got close. Even in death Bernard and Martha Sturgis had been loath to offend…